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This Day in History

Jul 24, 2010

What do these numbers have in common? Late Thursday night, we got rain. LOTS of rain. In the 30 hours following, my area received approximately 11" of rain. We are now in a state of disaster.

There is a river and a creek that run through the county and city -- The river is at 16ft right now, two feet above flood stage.

The rain wreaked havoc in my city as well as the county. All roads leaving the city except one were closed due to flooding. I saw water shooting up through a manhole cover. I live on higher ground so was one of the lucky ones! Some who live one block to the west of me had 3 feet of water in their basement. In a community SW of me, people have been dealing with entire basements full of water for over 4 days. That community has been closed to traffic.

I woke up Saturday morning to water in my basement. There was at least an inch of water across 3/4 of the basement. Luckily, I keep all the important stuff up on plastic pallets so I didn't lose much.

I started to shop vac the water and after sucking up 30 gallons of water, I found out that water was seeping up through a crack in the floor. In the three years at The Homestead, I've never seen that happen. I could hold the shop vac over the crack and hear the water being sucked up. That was the end of cleaning up the basement water... at least until it stopped bubbling up through the crack!

Six hours later, I was able to clean up the basement. ONE HUNDRED TWENTYgallons later most of the water is off the basement floor.

What Did The City Look Like Early Saturday Morning?

Baileyville Road

IL Rte 20 W

Lamm Road

Walnut Road: Crews were working to remove a utility pole that had fallen onto the roadway due to rushing water. See how close the water is to the top of the bridge? By later in the afternoon, the water had risen up over the bridge and the road had to be closed.

Sonic: At the time the photo was taken, the waterwas about thigh deep. May I take your order?

West Ave Shopping: Later in the afternoon, there was at least 6" of water rushing across the roadway.

NOTE: Please excuse the poor quality of the photos. They were taken with my cell phone. I did have my camera with me and took hundreds of photos over a two hour time span, but when I went to upload them I got a card error. Grrr! (I am very upset) I don't know if they're recoverable, but I have a call into a computer place. My other photos really show how much devastation there was/is!

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comments:

oh my goodness....that is so hard to believe........because here I am, in the next state over & we are SO DRY! We could use some of that water.I feel your pain with the water in the basement. We had that happen ONE TIME too.......not fun at all. Hope you are doing ok today!

I hate to see all the destruction. I am originally from eastern ky and they have been suffering from flood waters. An elderly lady in Carter County KY was killed when flood waters swept her mobile home off of its foundations and smashed it into a bridge. I feel so bad for everyone suffering from these floods. I pray that things dry up soon.

I hate you had water in the basement,,glad you found the crack tho so you can seal it off hopefully and not have anymore problems. I remember when I lived that way the floods in Algonquin and in East and West Dundee. There were many days my parents had to rent a sump pump for the crawl space and one time their son put the hose (from the sump pump) in the gas tank on the car "to fill it up"!

OMG! What a lot of rain in such a short period of time. We had our rains in March and I thought they would never end. Some people got feet. We got inches in our basement but found a spot that was sending water into the basement. That reminds me, I need to look into that soon before the next flooding. I use the shop vac at first but then gave up. I couldn't lift the vac to the utility sink. Thankfully my brother was able to find a small sump pump that we could use with a garden hose and took care of one area that seemed to be water haven. A great way to find out how level your basement actually is... where is the water the deepest and what direction does the water run as you try to soak it up.

I hope you won't get more rain while things are drying out.

We've been a bit dry in Boston but we have been getting bits of rain here and there. Luckily no tornadoes like in CT or Maine.

Stay safe! and wash that basement with bleach or something like that to prevent mold.

a few years back we had really bad floods here. My sister house she moved out from 6months before had a couple foot water in. Luckily she had moved out as she was 8months pregnant, but flood water was in her back garden. Took about 18months before most people were back in their houses.

I know what you went through, we had the same, Midway got 8 inches of water, and 8 inches in our basement, we have 3 families of stuff down in the basement! No one was home with my dad and I so I cleaned up the basement by myself, couldn't let my dad do it, he's 83. Took me 2 days. Still without phone service! I love the new hair cut on the dog!

While you all up north of me were getting the heavy rain, we had the heavy rain with strong winds and violent lightening. Trees and power lines were down all over. My neighbor had a tree come down on the power line to their house and it caught on fire from the arching wires. The fire department had to wait for the fire to extinguish itself because the wires were live and the power company was so busy, they didn't get here until 3 am.

We are now also getting more flooding here from the areas up north. Thankfully I don't have anything in my basement to worry about.

I have several friends and family still in Freeport, so have been following along via Facebook regarding the flooding. I cannot believe the amount of water in Krape Park. I know in 2008 there was pretty severe flooding, but I don't think it was even this bad.

We also got hit hard here in Wisconsin with the same storms you guys had and my little town had some pretty severe flooding also, including an impromptu lake in my backyard and basement....that was not fun! Fortunately, it wasn't as bad as it was 2 years ago, but still bad enough.

A close friend of mine runs "See Free News" and he's posted some video of the flooding and it's just devastating!

why is it do you suppose we are hearing nothing about this flooding you would think it would be all over the news, granted I am not an avid new watcher but still we should be hearing something. I love the story about the divorce and the curtain rods I have heard it before and it makes me giggle every time I read it. I just laugh and think Karma is a bi--h and she is pi--ed.

I have several friends and family still in Freeport, so have been following along via Facebook regarding the flooding. I cannot believe the amount of water in Krape Park. I know in 2008 there was pretty severe flooding, but I don't think it was even this bad.

We also got hit hard here in Wisconsin with the same storms you guys had and my little town had some pretty severe flooding also, including an impromptu lake in my backyard and basement....that was not fun! Fortunately, it wasn't as bad as it was 2 years ago, but still bad enough.

A close friend of mine runs "See Free News" and he's posted some video of the flooding and it's just devastating!